Romeo and Juliet Love Essay Example for Free

Romeo and Juliet Love Essay Would someone ever betray their family for the person they love? Well in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare appears as a well-known plot with a twist ending on account of forbidden love. Two teenagers who come from different feuding families fall into love at first sight which always existed as forbidden since the families have hated each other since the beginning of time. The love comes off as so strong and powerful; it ends up killing them both with wrong information passed along. Since the strong feelings for one another lead to death, the love will always remain true and will always exist there. If those chanced forbidden love with someone, they would only stay together if it truly existed. In the heartwarming story of two teenagers falling in love and dying for each other in a matter of five days, it shows definite true love. In the play, it does not come off as â€Å"puppy love† but true love. Romeo and Juliet meet, get married, and die for each other. Romeo says â€Å"Did my heart love ‘til now? Forswear its sight. For I never saw true beauty ‘til this night,† showing his strong feeling and emotion. When the reader reads this quote said by Romeo, they would think of Romeo’s old loves such as Rosaline and think how he yearned for her, yet how Juliet has popping appearance and comes off as more valuable. Real love only comes around once, and when Romeo says this, he proves that she happens to be his one love, and he appeared dumb struck and blind until he saw her. Juliet says, â€Å"’Tis but thy name that is my enemy, thou art thyself though not a Montague. What is Montague? It is nor hand, not foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any part belonging to a man. Oh, what’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection to which he owes without that title. † The reader thinks that the love will not work since forbidden and wrong, but the name of you does not change who you will always live with as yourself and it should not change your rights. When Juliet says this and states it does not matter if what she did will be accepted as wrong, it shows she will do anything for Romeo which shows true love. Romeo chanced many loves, desperately, but states Juliet as the most worthy, and she also says it does not matter whether you take part in the life of a Montague or Capulet; love will be love and should not have rules or regulations. The way Shakespeare portrays the thoughts and words of Romeo and Juliet; you know it comes from the heart and that it shows love. â€Å"Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night ‘til it be morrow,† says Juliet after they both share their love for each other. When the reader sees this they think that it will not grow long until they will be seen again but it will show a painful while for them. It shows love because when love exists between someone, they want to spend all of their time with eachother, not away from them. â€Å"O my love, my wife! Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty,† says Romeo. After reading this, it comes to know Juliet fakes the death and that she will awake soon while Romeo thinks she will never awake, and she will stay in eternal sleep. Romeo states that even though the life has been sucked out of her, her beauty remains and it shows love. If it were lust he would not depress over it. When there is marriage and death for someone in just five days, love exists and you cannot fall for someone so quickly without feelings. To show and share love, marry, and die for someone that shares the same affections of love, true love exists and there will always live strong feelings between them. Juliet can barely go a night without seeing Romeo. Even though Romeo thought he loved before, he swears that the only person he happened to love could be Juliet, and that all his other lost relationships showed to exist as nothing but maybe lust. Romeo also states that nothing can change Juliet’s beauty. Juliet says it does not matter which family you happen to stay a part of, and as long as you love someone, it should be allowed. Loving someone involves dedicating your life to them. Romeo and Juliet do dedicate their lives and die so they will not exist with fraught with misery without their eternal love.

Stem Cell Treatment in Age-Related Macular Degeneration AMD

Stem Cell Treatment in Age-Related Macular Degeneration AMD Background: Age-Related Macular degeneration (AMD) is a painless disease that usually affects people over the age of 60. The Macular is the part of the fundus which is responsible for the patients central vision which allows them to see in fine detail and aids in facial object recognition. The patients peripheral vision is not affected so AMD does not result in complete blindness. The diagram shows the positions of the main structures inside a normal healthy eye such as the macula optic nerve. The general symptoms that a patient with AMD would experience are: Â   Â   Â   Blurred central vision distortion reduction in contrast sensitivity blind spots (scotomas) hallucinations (occasionally, more common in Wet AMD) (Symptoms taken from www.nhs.uk website) There are 2 types of AMD, Wet and Dry, the clinical presentations and the symptoms the patient experiences differ. Wet AMD occurs when the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) underneath the retina at the macula thickens and then breaks. The oxygen supply to the macula is disrupted and the body responds by abnormally growing new blood vessels through the RPE towards the macula to help increase oxygen supply, this can cause the macula to appear raised. The new vessels are fragile and poor quality so leak or bleed. This causes atrophy to the macula which results in rapid decline in central vision. Wet AMD is the most sight threatening of the 2 types as once the vision has be lost it cannot be regained again but there are treatments that can help slow the progression of the disease such as Anti-VEGF injections which stop/slow the growth of the new abnormal vessels. (www.nhs.uk) Dry AMD is the most common form of AMD, around 90% of cases. The clinical presentation of dry AMD is drusen appearing at or around the macula area. Drusen looks like white/yellow dots, they can be small and well defined or large and blurred margins. Drusen occurs as the eye may have a problem with disposing waste from the photoreceptors and so calcium and lipid deposits build up. The retinal pigment epithelium layer may thin and the drusen will push through. The drusen then causes photoreceptor death/degeneration causing atrophy of the retina. This is when the patients vision will start to reduce. It is a much slower disease process than wet AMD, it can be a couple of months before the patient experiences any symptoms relative to dry AMD. (www.AMD.org) Normal Fundus Wet AMD Dry AMD Stem Cells: Stem cells are undifferentiated cells which can differentiate into specialised cells such as muscle, skin and bone cells. In mammals there are 2 types of stem cells this depends on the source which they are taken from; these are embryos which are 4-5 days old in the blastocyst phase and in adult tissues throughout the body such as bone marrow, the brain and skeletal muscle tissue. (www.medicalnewstoday.com) The first trial was on 2 patients who were in late stage of AMD; they underwent immunosuppressive treatment to reduce a negative response to the new stem cells. The embryonic source is chosen for this treatment, the researchers used mouse skin cells to help the stem cells to differentiate into retinal cells. They are then purified so not contaminated by mouse cells. These purified retinal cells are then made into a 1ml solution and injected into only one eye (this is done in trials as they dont know if the treatment will have a damaging or successful effect on the eye). The general results from this trial were good; one patient had Stargardts macular dystrophy that before treatment could only see hand motions but 2 weeks after transplant was able to count fingers with only the eye that had the transplant carried out in it. Their vision continued to improve over the next 3 months. (www.nhs.uk, Bazian January 2012.) Structure Abstract/Intro -Short intro about what a stem cell and age related macular degeneration is. -Aim of dissertation; what I want to achieve through the dissertation as a whole. -Should be roughly 1 page. Stem cells -More detail on what they are. -Different types of stem cells; explain where they are found and when they would be used. -What type of AMD does this treat and why? Age-Related macular Degeneration -Background on both types (containing the anatomy of the eye, normal/abnormal) -Causes -Epidemiology -Pathogenesis -Pathology -Prevention -Treatments (current and new) Potential of stem cell -How do the stem cells differentiate to photoreceptors RPE cells? How well does it do this? -How well does the trials transfer from animals to humans? -What is the success of these trials? Discussion -Does this look like a viable treatment for AMD? -Could it be used for either wet/dry or just one? -What are the advantages/disadvantages? -Ethical argument in using stem cells from embryos. Conclusion Perspective -What I think of the whole argument for and against the treatment -Do I think it is a viable and effective treatment? -Do the results from trials back up the theory and argument for stem cells? New research -How have the trials been taken further? -Has any improvements or adjustments been made? E.g. Have administration methods or cell culturing methods changed? References Projected Timetable of Work 30/11/16 Sections 1, 2 ; Abstract, Stem cells What is AMD. 31/12/16 Section 4; Potential of stem cells in the treatment of AMD. 31/01/17 Section 5; Discussion. 28/02/17 Section 6 7; Conclusion/Perspective New research. 31/03/17 Section 8; References. Dissertation Complete, to be proof read and bound. 13/04/17 Final Hand in Date. References: www.amd.org/what-is-macular-degeneration/dry-amd/ www.cnib.ca www.medicalnewstoday.com www.nhs.uk/conditions/macular-degeneration/pages/introduction.aspx www.nhs.uk/news/2012/01January/Pages/embyonic-stem-cell-trial-macular-degeneration.aspx, Stem cell therapy safe for eye condition. January 24, 2012. Analysis by Bazian, edited by NHS Choices. rgw.com Webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu

Reflective Essay on the US Healthcare System

Reflective Essay on the US Healthcare System What is right with the U.S. Health Care System Marina Bukhrashvili The national strategy presented in The Affordable Care Act (ACA) seeks to fund prevention and public health. This is an important goal in our nation’s health care system. Prevention services, which include wellness, research, health screening, educational campaigns for preventive benefits and immunization programs, may have a positive effect on decreasing health care costs. To me, this first mandatory fund, also known as the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF), is very important since as I am planning a career path that involves public health and the health of the community. Seventy-six percent of the U.S. health care expenditure are spent on treating preventable chronic diseases (The Hasting Center, 2010). By law, the Prevention Public Health Fund must be used to provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs to improve health and help restrain the rate of growth in private and public health care costs. (American Public Health Association, 2010). I work in a skilled nursing facility which provides acute rehabilitation services to an elderly population following hospitalization. During an intake interview last winter, I asked an 82 year old female about her immunization history and she reported that â€Å"she never took a flu shot in her life.† And she doesn’t remember ever taking any type of vaccinations. She said that she was afraid that a vaccination would infect her and make her sick and that her sister â€Å"got sick from the flu vaccine.† It has been my experience that a great majority of our patients receive important immunizations for the first time during their stay at our facility. This finding is in line with research that shows that less than 50 percent of adults’ age 65 years or older were up-to-date with immunizations regardless of regular checkups (Department of Human Health Services, 2010). This is the case even though these services are paid for by almost all insurance plans, includ ing Medicare and Medicaid, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) (2011). Based on this experience, I feel that the PPHF maybe providing the necessary resources to promote the health of communities and contain health care costs that would arise from treating acute infections. Even though influenza and pneumonia are the fifth major causes of deaths in the country (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013), the immunization rates are still moderate. Despite all efforts to control health care across, racial, gender and age, the differences in influenza coverage persist. As the focus of health care shifts from post-diagnostic treatment to preventive medicine, making immunizations a part of every person’s health care plan is an essential first step in achieving this goal. Doctors’ offices that treat adult population seem to be a good choice for promoting vaccination but this strategy is not effective in increasing immunization rates for adults since most physicians have busy practices which mainly focus on treating acute illness versus seeing healthy patients for preventive medicine. In addition, according to Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2009), the leading causes for low immunization rates in the last few years were the high cost of screening, insufficient funds to cover the co-payment or deductibles; lack of knowledge of what health insurance would cover; and lack of health insurance. In addition, many older adults may not have a regular doctor or do not go for a check up on a regular basis. The prohibitive cost was addressed for Medicare beneficiaries by the ACA (2010) to some extent, which broadens the Medicare coverage for preventive services suggested by the USPSTF and eliminates out-of-pocket costs. There is no payment for influenza, pneumococcal and hepatitis B vaccines (Cassidy 2010). Although compliance with influenza vaccination has increased dramatically after Medicare began paying for influenza vaccines for the nation’s older and disabled population and after health reform in 2010, the proportion of older persons receiving this vaccine is still considerably low in elderly populations (CDC, 2013). According to the research (Eurich et al., 2008) some patients benefited from receiving influenza vaccination before they were hospitalized for pneumonia. As a result of passage of Affordable Care Act, most health insurance now covers co-payments for recommended clinical preventive services, which reduces financial cost to beneficiaries, however, the challenge remains to make older adults aware of the value of preventive services and encourage them to get the services they need. All efforts should be made to expand awareness in the community about clinical preventive services and benefits. . Nurses could send reminders to the health care providers to notify patients when the vaccinations are due. Such reminders could be issued on seasonal basis to educate patients about importance about vaccinations during patient encounters such as the registration interview. Educational Seminars can be conducted across various community centers before immunization season begins. Interactions focusing on different ethnic groups may help to find and address their misconceptions about immunizations, if there are any. Nurses will play a key part in the f ulfillment of the mandate of ACA and their expending scope of practice is already shaping the future of healthcare. References Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. National Healthcare Disparities Report 2008. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; 2009. Available at: www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr08/nhdr08.pdf American Public Health Association (2010). Prevention of Public Health Fund. Available at: www.apha.org/advocacy/Health+Reform/PH+Fund/ Cassidy 2010: Cassidy A., Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Health Policy Brief: Preventive Services Without Cost Sharing, Health Affairs, December 28, 2010. Available at: www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief.php?brief_id=37 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The State of Aging and Health in America 2013. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, US Dept of Health and Human Services; 2013. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2020, Older Adult Section, December 2010. Available at: www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/overview.aspx?topicid=31 Eurich, D. C., Marrie, T. J., J, J., M, S. R. (2008). Mortality reduction with Influenza vaccine in patients with Pneumonia outside â€Å"flu† season. American Journal of Respiratory Critical Care Medicine, 178, 527-533 The Hasting Center. Health Care Cost Monitor. Projected Costs of Chronic Diseases, January 22, 2010. Available at: http://healthcarecostmonitor.thehastingscenter.org/kimberlyswartz/projected-costs-of- chronic-diseases/ The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Section 4002: Prevention and Public Health Fund. 111th Congress. Enacted March 23, 2010. Available at: http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommerce/ppacacon.pdf U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. USPSTF A and B Recommendations. Available at: www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsabrecs.htm

Themes in Lord of the Flies Essay -- essays research papers

William Goldning’s Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel where literary techniques are utilized to convey the main ideas and themes of the novel. Two important central themes of the novel includes loss of civilization and innocense which tie into the concept of innate human evil. Loss of civilization is simply the transition from civilization to savagery; order to chaos. The concept of loss of innocense is a key concept to innate human evil because childhood innocense is disrupted as the group hunted animals and even their own. Through the use of literary techniques these ideas are seen in the passage where Simon confronts the â€Å"Lord of the Flies.† The central concern of Lord of the Flies deals with the fall of civilization to the awakening of savagery. The conflict seen in this theme is explored through the dissolution of the young boys’ well mannered behavior as they accustomed themselves to a wild, barbaric life in the jungle. The concept of innate human evil takes an important role in this theme because as the boys grew more savage the beast that they feared grew within themselves. This innate human evil is the beast that destroys civilization as savagery claimed its position. In the passage the â€Å"Lord of the flies† indicates the presence of the beast within the boys. ‘Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!’ said the head/You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? (Pg. 143). To make this point cl...

An Analysis of Brooks First Fight.Then Fiddle Essay -- First Fight.Th

An Analysis of Brooks' First Fight.Then Fiddle  Ã‚   Gwendolyn Brooks' "First fight. Then Fiddle." initially seems to argue for the necessity of brutal war in order to create a space for the pursuit of beautiful art. The poem is more complex, however, because it also implies both that war cannot protect art and that art should not justify war. Yet if Brooks seems, paradoxically, to argue against art within a work of art, she does so in order create an artwork that by its very recognition of art's costs would justify itself. Brooks initially seems to argue for the necessity of war in order to create a safe space for artistic creation. She suggests this idea quite forcefully in the paired short sentences that open the poem: "First fight. Then fiddle." One must fight before fiddling for two reasons. First, playing the violin would be a foolish distraction if an enemy were threatening one's safety; it would be, as the phrase goes, "fiddling while Rome burns." Second, fighting the war first would prepare a safe and prosperous place where one could reasonably pursue the pleasures of music. One has to "civilize a space / Wherein to play your violin with grace." It should be noted further that while Brooks writes about securing a "civilized" place to play the violin, she seems clearly to be using this playing as an image for art in general, as her more expansive references to "beauty" or "harmony" suggest. Nonetheless, much that Brooks writes about the necessity to fight before fiddling indicates the she does not support this idea, at least not fully. For example, Brooks describes making beautiful music as being "remote / A while" from "malice and murdering." In addition to the negative way Brooks describes war in this line, ... ...ultural prestige of violin playing. Indeed, as an emblem of Western civility (one thinks of Renaissance sonnets), the sonnet might be involved in the very justification of the destruction of other less "civilized" peoples that the poem condemns. One might wonder why Brooks produces poetry, especially the sonnet, if she also condemns it. I would suggest that by critically reckoning the costs of sonnet-making Brooks brings to her poetry a self-awareness that might justify it after all. She creates a poetry that, like the violin playing she invokes, sounds with "hurting love." This "hurting love" reminds us of those who may have been hurt in the name of the love for poetry. But in giving recognition to that hurt, it also fulfills a promise of poetry: to be more than a superficial social "grace," to teach us something we first did not, or did not wish to, see.   

Faulkner Changed My Life :: Personal Narrative Essay Example

Thanks to Faulkner, to the very thought of him, between thirteen and fourteen I began to feel unassailable I spite of everything. I wasn't, of course, but I felt that way, enough to get on with my writing and to mop up like high-calorie gravy such praise from teachers as came my way. Â   If you fix one eye on Faulkner and the other on Melville, and you remember some of what Keats said about negative capability, you can just about manage to commit the delectable autonomy known as writing for its own sake - for the glory, the rebirth, the illusion of doing what nobody has ever done before. There's nothing more unassailable than that, even as things fall apart around you and you see the fruit-flies ascending to power without composing so much as a paragraph. Vary the image a bit, amassing the bestiary of the foul, and you can add Zola's toad of disgust, which he said you have the swallow every morning before getting on with the work. Swallow it, note the hegemony of the fruitflies, and indeed the demise of yet another nobel unicorn gone to roost in Paris or now plying trade on Wall Street, and you then become clear enough to write for the next few hours as if the world were waiting for your sun to rise and would do nothing serious without you. That's the feeling, the pu mped-up, inspired elation that lofts you---me-from essay to essay. Â   My admission includes the fact that, apart from admiring his expertise at caricatural opera, I never took much interest in Yoknapatawpha, the fantastic name apart only slightly below Brobdingnag. They might have been pinball salesmen in Ethiopia for all I cared. What bowled me over was WR's noise, that humming and thrumming you heard in the distance even as you opened just about any novel of his except the first two. It was a deliberate obfuscation of meaning yet done with meanings, using meaning to obliterate some other meaning, and the message, if such, was something choral and echoic with in its intimate hinterland just about everything else of his you'd read. He wasn't creative-writing, he was doing solo recitative, singing to himself all the while, wso that while you have Gavin Stevens in focus, one work of gab to eight hundred of deviant penumbral gesture, some of the

Case Study of “Bookoff, Amazon Japan, and the Japanese Retail Bookselling Industry”

Case Study of â€Å"Bookoff, Amazon Japan, and the Japanese Retail Bookselling Industry† 1. The reasons for the profitability of large Japanese retail booksellers relatively poor and their scale relatively small. One reason for this is that there is no significant industry consolidation has occurred, so there is no dominant bookseller, because there is a unique formal institution which is price-fixing system that makes it illegal for larger and potentially more efficient competitors to use price competition to drive out small competitors. Laws have allowed publishers to fix the price of new books, music, and newspapers in the bookselling industry, this means retailers are unable to compete on price. For a long time, sales has been in stagnation, even worse, the steady increase of costs over time has reduced the profitability of both large chains and small stores. Also because of the undifferentiated book in multiple book stores, the only way to compete is on price, but this is illegal, and also the entry to this industry is low, small entrants can enter this industry easily ,this lead to the scale relatively small. . The benefits for individual companies and the industry to participate in Saihan system and the costs. Under Saihan system, for individual companies, they sell books, musics, magazines at fixed price, the competition is not fierce and they can almost earn average profit of this industry, because there is no need to compete on price, this can make them more cautious of their diversity of products, so they w ould provide as more product as they can, which could increase customer loyalty if customers could always find what they want. Another benefit is that Saihan system encourages new tittles to publish, this enables individual company to bring many new books in their stores to attract customer. While the costs of this system for individual companies are becoming bigger, they have to spend large amount of money to process the new titles while they are making less profit on them. Because of fixed price, all the stores are providing undifferentiated books and also the less competition makes individual companies much less efficient. As the industry is under price fixing system, first benefit is that this system combined with Consignment sale system which allows retailers and wholesalers to return unsold books to the publisher free of charge, leading publishers and wholesalers prefer to supply larger retailers first, which drives small retailers out of business. Another benefit is that this system maintains market stability, the price is not volatile and the industry can grow steadily. On the other hand, costs are, as the industry entry is not high, many small book stores being set up in Japan, with the large number of stores, every company is earning lower profit but they can not compete on price. Because of the rigidity of price, customer would like to buy cheaper imported books and CDs and also buy second-hand books, online books, and also rental books instead of buying a new book, these substitutes are now threatening the industry and also hamper the growth of the industry. . Industry-, resource-, and institutional based views to explain the success of Bookoff and Amazon Japan. †¢ Industry-based view From industry-based view, rivalry among competitor in Japanese industry is characterized by large numbers of relatively small booksellers, as they are all selling products at the same prices, the rivals in the industry are similar in size, influence and product offering, so the competition with this saturated industry is vigorous. As the entry barriers of this industry is relatively low, some incumbents enjoys economies of scales, only large retailers are earning higher profits, small operations are being driven out of this industry, the profitability of the industry is not so attractive, so, potential entrants are few. In the area of book distribution channel, the competition is very low, as Nippon Shuppan Hanbai and Tohan control between 70% and 90% of the book wholesale market. They prefer to supply larger retailers first, because they don’t need to worry much about returned books under Consignment Sale System. So the small number of suppliers and they provide the newest and most popular books shape the strong bargaining power The buyers of this industry now can choose to use internet to entertain, this causes the overall drop in book sales in Japan, and the number of retailers in the industry is very big, so they can choose between different stores without any switching costs, and they are all facing undifferentiated books, so the bargaining powers of buyers in the industry is very enhanced. The substitutes are posing big threat of this industry, e-book and cell phone novel are convenient and less expensive compared to existing hard copy books and customers virtually incur no costs when switching from hard copy books to e-books, cell phone novels. So the substitutes are a big threat for this industry. For Bookoff, the strategy Bookoff deployed is low-cost leadership, it uses a loophole in the Saihan system to offer lower prices by opening used-book stores, because used books are an exemption to the Saihan system. Bookoff uses its new technologies to clean book covers and grind down dog-eared pages to make a used book look practically new, and the rehabilitated books are at new book quality, so, it offers the same value of a product at a lower price compared with its rivals, the technology it is using is an entry barrier for other competitors and potential entrants. While the suppliers of Bookoff are those used book holders, their bargaining power is much lower since it buys books form the suppliers at 10% of its list price. In addition, Bookoff focuses on the used book and differentiates itself by shaping the new recycle industry, the students can feel frugal and environmentally conscious without suffering a drop-off in the quality of books when buying new-used ones, and new-used book store such as Bookoff is also an acceptable compromise for the still image-conscious, but increasingly thrifty, Japanese consumer. For Amazon Japan, first, it uses product differentiation strategy to provide a wide variety of products besides book. It offers music, DVDs, videos, software, gaming and even kitchen appliances. By offering the wide range of products, Amazon Japan differentiates itself by offering larger selection of products. Also, it differs itself by allowing customers to read excerpts and passages from books before they purchase them. Low cost leadership strategy is also deployed to compete with existing competitors by offering free shipping which put Amazon on par with its bricks and mortar competitors but give it an advantage over other online stores. †¢ Resource-based view. Bookoff has several new technologies as tangible resource and has intangible resource as reputation for offering new used books. These new technologies can add value to those used books, Boooff can clean book covers and grind down dog-eared pages to make a used book look practically new. And the value-adding activity is very firm-specific, so, the technology resource is vey valuable. As Bookoff’s new valuable technology is a rare resource and capability, other competitor has no access to it, so it has the potential to provide continue competitive advantage. And because the new championed technology probably has been registered as patent by Bookoff, the imitation of this capability is almost impossible. The organization of Bookoff is unlike most bureaucracy-laden Japanese companies, it franchises all its stores, and the owners and employees are encouraged to act like entrepreneurs, and this feature of organization of Boooff gives its competitive advantage that its competitors don’t have. For Amazon Japan, when the bookselling activity is not value-adding in Japan, it turns to offer a wide variety of products besides books such as electronics, toys, and sporting good, etc. Because of this innovation resource, Amazon Japan always keeps increasing its product lineup to provide value to consumers. Another question is that this innovation of Amazon Japan is not rare, it can be easily imitated by its competitors, and thus, this competitive advantage is just contemporary for Amazon Japan, but other competitors can only imitate its product line, they probably are not as innovative as Amazon Japan. †¢ Institution-based view Institution is the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction, the institution in Japan is quite unique compared with that in American. The Saihan system, a formal institution, this law prevents these bookseller competing on price. For Bookoff, this institution doesn’t constrain its competitive advantage, it uses low-cost leadership to compete with its competitors, there is a loophole in the Saihan system, because it is a used-book stores, so, it is an exemption to the Saihan system, then, it can lower its prices which can be much lower than its competitors. Further more, it accommodate to the changed informal institution in Japan that the Japanese consumer’s image-conscious, but thrifty culture, and it also cater for the Japanese young people’s taste that it is new-used book stores, the young generation are much more environmentally conscious. For Amazon Japan, it uses a clever methods to bypass the Saihan system to offer free shipping to customers which put its products at lower prices than its competitors that do not offer this service, and its also opened Amazon Marketpalce, this allows Amazon to indirectly sell books and music at prices below Saihan-mandated prices as third-party uses, where those third-party users are not bound by Saihan system. In addition, Amazon uses a points system for customers to accumulate points to redeem for a gift certificate, this also by pass the Saihan system to lower the price of its products. Because of the informal institution of Japan, people in Japan are fear of fraud to use credit care for online purchase, in order to cater for this unique culture, Amazon Japan started a service to allow its customer to make payments at any convenience stores and ATMs throughout the country, enabling customers to avoid the risk of online fraud. And Amazon Japan also accommodate the Japanese customers’ tradition of standing and reading to provide â€Å"look inside† option to allow customer to read excerpts and passages from books before they purchase them. 4. What will happen if the Saihan system dissolves? After the dissolve of Saihan system, all the competitors in Japan can then compete on price, a lot of small stores will not hold because they lack economies of scale and will be driven out of the bookselling industry, the industry structure will have fundamental change. The competition will be fierce, significant industry consolidation will occur and the industry will probably be dominant by giant companies. The suppliers’ competition will also be intensified, so, it will be important to have good supplier intimacy, buyer will have access to much lower prices of books. 5. If I were a board member of Barnes& Noble or Borders, I would approve a proposal to open a series of book stores in Japan, because the success of Amazon Japan and Bookoff has indicated that Saihan system can be easily by-passed, we can follow the success of Amazon Japan to offer free shipping and provide a wide selection for our customers, because the capabilities Amazon Japan are not hard to imitate, we have our own human resources to even build even better facilities than Amazon Japan, based on out resources in American, I believe we can success in Japan, if the Saihan System dissolves, we can still proceed to Japanese market, because after Saihan System dissolves, the competition in Japan will be very fierce, a lot of small operation will be driven out of business, we can then buy these small business and integrate them into our business operation. And we have economies of scale, we believe we can offer lower prices if price war begins in Japan. References 1. Peng, M (2009) Bookof f, Amazon, and the Japanese retail bookselling industy, Global Strategy, 2e, 387-395.